THE co-leaders of the Scottish Greens are to take part in a reading of the IPCC report on global warming in a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater will each read parts of the 223,000-word report in an event taking place throughout the week.
Hundreds of volunteers are expected to take part in the show, called 1.5 Degrees Live, with the aim of raising public awareness of the UN report.
Each participant in the show is expected to read for around 20 minutes, with the readings having started from page one of the report on Monday morning.
Authors including Val McDermid and Naomi Wolf have already participated in the show, along with scientists from the University of Edinburgh. It is expected the report will have been read aloud in full by Friday at 9 pm.
Katie Smith, one of the organisers of the event, said: “We are bringing the IPCC report to the Fringe because it challenges us to take on ‘rapid and unprecedented societal transformation’ by 2030 in the face of ‘an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet’.
“This is too big to leave to governments and corporations. This is something for every single one of us to have our say in.”
Fellow organiser Patrick Dunne said: “We bring this report to the Edinburgh Festivals to challenge the creative, disruptive and innovative people of the world to help us break free from business as usual and reimagine our future for the better.”
Harvie praised the organisers of the event and said the UK Government could learn from the show.
He said: “It’s fantastic to see this report highlighted on the platform of the biggest arts festival in the world and I commend Patrick Dunne and Katie Smith for pulling this event together. But while Fringe-goers seem to recognise the urgency of the climate emergency, governments have a lot of catching up to do.
“The UK Government were compared to Dad’s Army by the Committee on Climate Change and the Scottish Government have declared a climate emergency but are still pursuing maximum extraction of oil and gas and continuous growth of air travel.
“They could learn a lot by attending this show and hearing how the UN have given us a decade to turn things around.”
Slater said: “This performance is part of the grassroots activism that is central to green politics.
“This is how you communicate with people when governments and the media let you down.
“If they won’t inform you of what the United Nations has said, we will.”
She added: “The report states clearly that governments need to act with some urgency, transitioning to low-carbon economies and make plans to heal our planet by restoring our woodlands and wetlands.
“These are all exciting opportunities that can create jobs and stimulate our economy.
“It isn’t enough to have ambitious targets, we have to take action to meet them. We will propose a Scottish Green New Deal so Scotland can lead the way in tackling this global emergency.”
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